


Forget Me for a While

by TheIndifferentDroid



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:47:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27181328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheIndifferentDroid/pseuds/TheIndifferentDroid
Summary: Erwin remembers one month before his thirty-seventh birthday.
Relationships: Levi/Erwin Smith
Comments: 20
Kudos: 162





	Forget Me for a While

**Author's Note:**

> _Remember me when I am gone away,  
>  Gone far away into the silent land;  
>  When you can no more hold me by the hand,  
> Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.  
> Remember me when no more day by day  
>  You tell me of our future that you plann'd:  
>  Only remember me; you understand  
> It will be late to counsel then or pray.  
> Yet if you should forget me for a while  
>  And afterwards remember, do not grieve:  
>  For if the darkness and corruption leave  
>  A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,  
> Better by far you should forget and smile  
>  Than that you should remember and be sad.  
> _  
> -Christina Rossetti

Erwin remembers one month before his thirty-seventh birthday. 

He remembers all at once, in a debilitating bout that he’s thankful happens on his couch one Saturday afternoon. He is more aged in his past life—war, he realizes, will do that to a man—but never older than he is the day he remembers, no matter how much time passes. The thought makes his stomach turn in the days immediately after, but once he realizes he is not graced with the memory of his dying breaths, he feels a little luckier. 

He remembers lots of things—everything—but most of all, he remembers Levi, those grey eyes so hauntingly familiar that he can’t be sure if he’s seen him before, in this life, or if it’s the years of memories that make him feel real.

He no longer dreams. Instead, his nights are filled with memories in terrible combinations of horror and misplaced peacefulness. Some nights he wakes sweating and heart racing, shaken by the gruesome details he’s only ever seen in movies in this life, the terrors far too close for his liking. Other nights he wakes with a hole in his chest, empty and unfulfilled, wanting the touch of a man he knows he has never received.

Early on, despite that ache, Erwin decides not to go looking for Levi; just the idea of Levi not remembering him—the idea of Levi not existing in his timeline at all—quells his ever growing desire for knowledge, steadies his hand when it itches to search. 

So he waits, not patiently, but he waits.

Erwin aches for that companionship which is so evident in his memories, so familiar yet so distant. He longs for the devotion that reverberates over lifetimes, a feeling which has never blessed him in this one. The thoughts cling to him like a phantom limb, sentiments from a person long gone that seep into his skin, invisible and unbidden but infectious and consuming.

There is not a single day that Levi does not cross his mind.

It takes two and a half years to find Levi, only searching for him in the faces of every stranger Erwin meets. He has mulled over what his first words would be, he has run every possible scenario through his mind, but he is still not prepared to see him like this, so unceremoniously, on a crowded street corner in the pouring rain, running late for work. 

Levi is nearly unrecognizable, but Erwin knows immediately it is him, even with his wet hair plastered to his forehead and a messenger bag against his hip where his weapons should sit. Even now, though, he appears no less deadly.

His name slips easily from Erwin’s lips—not at all what he had rehearsed—and in a moment of numb weakness, Erwin reaches out to him as the crowd begins to move.

The palm of Erwin’s hand aches when he touches Levi’s shoulder.

He turns around and shoots Erwin a pointed glare, and just the feel of those piercing eyes on him sends shivers down Erwin’s spine. But there is nothing else in those eyes except agitation and aggression and they are quintessentially Levi, but not the Levi Erwin knows—or knew. There is no recognition there, no light. 

Levi does not remember.

Erwin mumbles an apology about mistaken identity, his words weak and shattered. Levi takes a headphone out his ear only long enough to condemn Erwin’s actions. And then he’s off, disappearing into the crowd, no different and no more found than he was minutes ago.

Erwin turns around. Calls in sick. Loses sleep. 

The next day, he sees Levi again, though it does nothing to ease the jumble of emotions in his gut.

Levi, Erwin learns, works in the same office building. He is in the elevator lobby. He is in the cafe. He is all around Erwin but nowhere near him. 

It takes three weeks before Erwin cracks; he is only human, after all, and far less of a man than his old self. He knows it won’t be easy—this is Levi he has to befriend, after all—but he has to try. 

Levi lets him in gradually. He hesitantly accepts his very small talk in the mornings over a few weeks. He doesn’t curse him out when Erwin asks to sit near him for lunch after a few months’ time. And it takes a handful of attempts, but Levi agrees to join Erwin for after work drinks one Friday evening. 

Erwin learns the new Levi, ever so slowly, trying to forget everything he knows about the man. He is careful with his words until he is sure Levi has told him the things he knows he shouldn’t already know. He still likes tea. He still curses like a teenager, though there are new words in his arsenal, modern words, that Erwin hears in a new light when they fall from Levi’s lips. He is the same. He is familiar. But he is so different. They’re both different. The world is changed, their situations so much better than before, and Erwin will never complain about his boring office job again because, now, in this life, he gets to actually enjoy Levi’s company. 

Levi is as hard to read as ever, but Erwin thinks he’s enjoying his company too. Even if it’s platonic, Erwin can live with it, if it means he can be around Levi. Though he’d fallen for him almost immediately. Granted, he realizes he was nearly there before. 

The time takes its toll on Erwin, though, each week and month and then year that passes deepening his guilt. He knows what it means, if his theories are correct. Levi is still alive in their old life, all these years after Erwin’s death. Each day that passes is but a measly penance for every day he left Levi behind. Levi had done his suffering. Now it was Erwin’s turn. 

But after two years, something shifts. Erwin feels himself getting ever closer, the space between him and Levi becoming exponentially smaller, until it is almost infinitesimal. And it feels wrong, somehow. He knows Levi could remember a day or ten years from now but the longer they go on, the closer Levi gets to remembering, and Erwin doesn’t want to take advantage of knowing him more than he realizes. Doesn’t want to scare him away when he finally remembers. 

So he backs off, distances himself. 

Not easily, but he does it. Not slowly, but all at once.

He gets to work early. He stays late. Takes the stairs. Brings his lunch, eats at his desk. Anything to avoid Levi. 

But it’s a loss in his life, even if this time it’s his own doing, and that familiar hole creeps back into his chest. He longs again, even more than before, because now knows the two versions of Levi so intimately, admires and adores both of them, and he can have neither.

Some days he gets careless, the aimlessness keeping him up late, making him sleep in. Arriving on time puts him a touch too close to Levi, and he catches glimpses of him like a phantom in his periphery as the days go on.

It takes weeks, but Levi finally catches up with him, the grogginess in Erwin’s limbs delaying his move to close the elevator door just a moment too late, and Levi sneaks on, eyes piercing as ever, and slams the emergency button the moment they’re alone.

Levi tears into Erwin with a litany of curses and questions and accusations, and Erwin takes them all. He deserves them. But no matter how much Levi asks him to explain himself, Erwin still cannot tell him. All he can do is apologize, so that’s what he does, meekly, quietly, a low undercurrent to Levi’s swell of emotions. Erwin refuses to look at him, though he has little place else to look, can’t stand to see the vehemence in Levi’s features; his voice is painful enough.

Levi curses once more, then he quiets, nothing but his seething breaths filling the cramped space between them. Then he’s on the ground—Erwin sees him fall out of the corner of his eye—on his knees, clutching his head in his hands. In pain.

And Erwin gets a flashback—a memory—of Levi kneeling in front of him twice in their former lives, both memories agonizing in their own right. And now he has this one to add, some new milestone, a turning point.

Because now Levi knows. Erwin knows he knows. 

Erwin mourns, immediately, for the old Levi. It has been four and a half years, and it pains Erwin to think of their former life, what Levi must have endured to remember so soon. Four and a half years of more war, more pain. Erwin would have suffered for another century if it meant Levi got to live a long life. 

Erwin kneels next to him now, the old memory so fresh in his mind he half expects to feel the cold sewer water seep through his pants leg. He whispers Levi’s name and the man in front of him jumps at the sound, so overwhelmed and overstimulated, Erwin knows all too well. But he can’t help himself, and he calls out again. 

This time, Levi doesn’t jump. He lowers his hands from his face. He looks up at Erwin.

And Erwin sees it now, in those gray eyes, almost blue and shining with unspent tears, that recognition that was so absent years ago. That light, that knowing look that sees Erwin now, really notices him. Levi is there now, fully, past and present, old and new. 

An unnerving look darkens Levi’s eyes that Erwin knows they will need to address later, but then his features soften, accepting just for a moment, Erwin thinks, of the knowledge he’s been given.

Levi throws himself into Erwin, wrapping his arms around his back and gripping him, that raw strength Erwin appreciates and knows so well digging itself into his muscle through his fingertips. 

Erwin hugs him back, grasping him, trying to lift the burden off Levi’s shoulders, so grateful he has him but not unaware of the price of this gift.

Then he finally hears that voice, nestled up next to his ear, that familiar timbre, deep and resonant and laced with that same fondness he has been aching for all these years. 

“Erwin.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading.
> 
> I'm on tumblr as [huxandthehound](https://huxandthehound.tumblr.com/) and twitter @[NonchalantDroid](https://twitter.com/nonchalantdroid). Come say hi.


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